


Mama

by GodsHumbleClown



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26830840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodsHumbleClown/pseuds/GodsHumbleClown
Summary: After Jack scabs, David's heart breaks, and Esther is there to pick up the pieces.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20
Collections: Canon Era Newsies One Shots





	Mama

**Author's Note:**

> For Newsies Inktober day 5 (prompt - Hold)  
> For the full list of prompts, see my tumblr, maggs-is-a-muppet.  
> This is the first one I've written a one-shot for, and I might do some more.

Esther sat finishing just a bit more lacework, contemplating the day's events. 

_ Jack scabbed, Mama… I trusted him. _

The only words David had spoken since coming home that day, broken heart etched clearly on his sleeve. 

It was late; Les had long since gone off to bed, confused and hurt, but in a much simpler way than David's. Les was simply upset; he didn't think so much of it.

Sarah was heartbroken, of course. She did love that boy so…

But it was David who Esther worried most about. He hadn't eaten, hadn't uttered more than three words since coming home. Her boy was as mute as his picture had been in the paper, the one now tacked neatly above the stove.

David did think, sometimes too much. He sat thinking now, out on the fire escape where only a few days before, he'd stood beside a new friend. A new friend who had turned, betrayed him. 

David was broken, and Esther's heart broke along with him. 

"David, come inside before you catch a cold."

David turned to face her, eyes like he'd just woken up from a long sleep. 

Esther was surprised to see that he didn't appear to have been crying. She'd thought for sure that was the reason for the huddling outside in solitude. 

She gestured for him to come in through the window, and thank goodness he listened. 

David stood in their little apartment, lost and confused as Esther had never seen her son look before.

"Mama…" he whispered, or was it a whimper? 

"Mama, why did he do it?"

"I don't know, darling. I'm so sorry." Esther drew her older son into a tight hug, and he collapsed in her arms like an exhausted child. 

His shoulders trembled, and Esther suddenly realized just how broad they were.

They would have been awkward to hold, but Esther was his  _ mother _ . David would never grow too big for her to hold. 

David gripped her blouse tight, shivering like a leaf to control the tears Esther could feel soaking her shoulder. 

" _ Sheifale _ , shh…" Esther held him tight, trying to rock a boy so near to being a man, yet so very far from it at the same time. 

David loved with his heart, his whole heart. Esther wouldn't change her son for the world, but  _ oh _ , how she wished she could change the world itself! 

To give her sweet boy a world that would love him back with every breath he loved it with. 

"It hurts, Mama."

Esther crooned gently, running a comforting hand through David's hair. He still had those curls, same as when he was a baby. Her little sheep. So gentle, so clumsy back then, scraped knees being the biggest problem David faced. Esther smiled sadly at the memory. 

If only things could be so simple again. 

David didn't cry easily, so determined to  _ Be a Man _ , and now, now all those tears came out at once, soaking into Esther's embrace with heaving sobs. 

Esther wanted to be angry, wanted to despise the boy who had hurt her son so, but her heart couldn't bear it.

Esther said she didn't know, didn't understand  _ why _ Jack did what he did, but she was a mother; she knew. 

She knew as soon as Jack walked through her door that he was frightened. She knew. 

She knew in the way that he stood, the way he spoke, the cocky, self-assured attitude that positively  _ radiated _ off of the young man. 

A shield against the world, to protect himself. 

Esther had wanted nothing more than to hug that boy, hold him close and promise that everything would be alright. 

Hold him like she held her boy now, her David. 

Her curly haired little lamb, grown up too soon. 


End file.
